James Toroda was already fuming about an earlier incident with his estranged wife when Officer Carlos Luna pulled him over for a busted taillight.

Luna—who was wearing the body camera which captured the footage above—attempted to calm Toroda down. Sensing that Toroda was instead becoming even more agitated, Luna ordered Toroda out of his vehicle, and that’s when Toroda attempted to murder him.

He reached toward the passenger seat and pulled out a 9mm pistol hidden under a jacket. Luna tried to pull Todora away and out of the vehicle, and the two struggled briefly.

Todora then aimed the pistol at Luna‘s head and pulled the trigger, McMahill said.

The gun was loaded, McMahill said, but did not have a round in the chamber, so it did not fire but readied a round.

Luna heard the click and immediately pulled back and fell to the road, McMahill said. As he did, Todora pulled the trigger a second time.

This time, the gun fired, and a bullet went through a Jeep door frame and shattered the rear driver-side window.

Officer Kroening, who had approached the passenger-side door, saw the commotion and heard the gunshot, and fired three rounds at Todora, killing him.

There’s something slightly off about the Review-Journal story, as 9mm pistols don’t self-load from an empty chamber. Either Toroda cycled the slide to chamber a round after hearing a “click” instead of a “bang” before firing the second shot, or there was a round already chambered with a hard primer.

Either way, Officer Luna is incredibly lucky, and I suspect that he’s managed to thank both Officer Kroening and God for his still being alive.

Metro police will review the incident to ensure that all policies and procedures were followed, but admits that even the best training cannot prepare officers for every eventuality.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com.
Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun.
He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.
https://bearingarms.com/author/bobowens-bearingarms/